Letting Off Steam
by The Madman From The Bronx
Summary: Sometimes a person just needed to let off steam. Rated T for language. A Delancey fic for Delancey Week!


**My contribution to Delancey Week. One of the characters in this story is an OC for one of my stories. I just wrote a scene which gave me an idea... anyhoo, I hope some of it gets a few laughs 'cause it's supposed to be somewhat humorous. Rated T for some language. Enjoy!**

Morris Delancey walked to the distribution center. Jealous. Always jealous. Of the little attention the Delanceys got between them, Oscar soaked it all up. Pretty literally, too. He smirked at the thought of all the bruises Oscar came home with every day. Well, there were some upsides to an anonymous life.

His brother came up with all the lines, drew all the muscles, and however bad, (which _was,_ compared to Cowboy) did most of the fighting worth talking about. So though Oscar never got any of them, he must've been better with girls, too. 'Cause Morris was a bum. _The_ bum.

It was time for Morris to quit sniveling in self-pity because here came his brother with his fat mouth.

"Hey Morris." Now that Oscar was close enough, Morris could tell that there was a cigar hanging out of his fat mouth. "I'm gonna do you the favor of your life."

That didn't sound good. Still, Morris pretended to be interested. Or play dumb. For him, both were the same. "What?" He asked cautiously.

"I said," the bowler-hatted brother smirked, whipping the cigar out of his mouth. "I'm gonna do you the favor of your life."

"Huh."

"See that broad over there?"

"Yeah?" Morris didn't.

"I'm gonna get you a girlfriend."

Morris turned around slowly to face Oscar, too slowly for the effect to be intimidating as he would have liked. A girlfriend? Oscar himself didn't have a girlfriend, and would've done anything to get one. There had to be a catch.

"Why?" He asked suspiciously.

"Why?" Oscar scoffed, looking more malicious than ever. "'Don't she look like a nice girl?"

"Huh."

"What are you so quiet about, _"huh"_?" Oscar yelled, shoving his brother- hard- and mocking him at the same time. "Look, that _kid_ over there is gonna join forces with us, or at least she's playin' like it. She's a bit too young to be a broad, though…"

Morris followed Oscar's gaze curiously, and immediately afterwards wanted to soak his brother to kingdom come. The girl was short, plump, ugly, red-haired, and couldn't have been more than 12 years old.

Wanted to soak Oscar? Huh, if he actually won…

Morris pinned Oscar up against the alley wall. _"I'm gonna get you a girlfriend,_ _""huh""? _If she was ever a broad, her ma must've dumped acid on her face when she was a baby!" He yelled and waved a fist in front of Oscar's face.

"Shhh! She's coming over!" Oscar glared at Morris.

Morris got off his brother. It would've been a tad bit much to live up to if the newsies told each other that the Delancey brothers were perpetually at war. Oscar would always win.

Indeed, the little girl was toddling- there was no other word for it- over. Not that she _acted_ young, but she just didn't _walk_ very together. In fact, it looked like she was limping.

"Hey!" She glared. "Don'tchoo guys evah take a break?"

"Why? Gonna go run to one of your newsie friends?" Oscar leered.

"I don't know what dat was s'posed ta mean, but I gots eahs like a hawk. An' I ain't in league wichoo guys. Do you get the idea dat every time someone asks ya a _simple_ question dey wanna join ranks? Idiots." The little girl sniffed.

"Hey, you weren't nice to us." Oscar attested menacingly, shoving his brother out of the way and standing at his full size in front of the girl.

The girl was unfazed. "Dat was because you cawled me Hildagarde," she pointed out. (She detested the name Hildagarde and preferred Hilda, but unfortunately it seemed pretty much everybody liked to tease her on this front.) "An' why do ya hate us? You guys shoah ain't evil like the boys make ya out ta be. In fact, ya ain't _much_."

A look came into Oscar's eyes that Morris had never seen before, (thought if Morris had to choose, he would've said it was for the first statement and not the second) and for a second he looked dangerous, as if he were actually responsible for the stories of 'rape' and 'murder' Oscar Delancey had committed in his prime- according to the tall-tales that the newsies wove into their lives and selling times to make life more entertaining. Unfortunately it had come to more than that eventually. Oh well. That was they Delanceys' way of fun- pretending to live up to these. It wasn't all bad for everyone.

She spoke again. "Hey, you'se done stuff but I ain't complainin'. See dat street a little ways down there?" The little girl pointed. "My friends ah standin' ovah there. I was too, until now. There was a fight there, just now."

"When?" Oscar said boredly. He had no time for little girls who didn't want to join ranks with him.

"I toldja! Jus' now." She said angrily.

"Why?"

"'Cause... some kid was botherin' anuddah kid. She needed ta get outta way... dah oddah person's way. But, none a' _my_ friends are gonna believe that." She shook her head at their stupidity. "_Dey_ think she did it 'cause the oddah girl took her wallet."

"Well, did she, stupid?" Oscar asked unwittingly.

The girl nodded. "Yeah. But I know bettah."

"Whattya mean?" Oscar asked. This was getting really annoying for him.

"She... she was beatin' dah kid up... jus' ta beat her up. She didn't even find out 'bout dah wallet 'till dah very end."

"Story of our life," Morris mumbled, smirking. "And just look how rich we are now."

Oscar whirled on his brother. "Shut up, you dumb ox. Make that 'your' and not 'our' because I ain't a stupid bastard like you are."

The girl looked from one brother to another and realized, for the first time in her life, that not everybody did things for a reason. The Delancey Brothers had simply done stuff like this too many times, but that didn't mean that they went out of their way to make everybody's life miserable. She in particular had been rather detached just a few minutes ago…

-

_She kicked the girl in the side and laughed as she writhed in turn. Since both were screaming so much, it could not be told who was laughing or crying by the small crowd that had gathered._

"_Ya think you'se smaht, you'ah cute? Ya don't know a damn thing, ya __runt__!" She let the word roll off her tongue, coolness erupting over her in solid waves. "What else do ya think, ya stupid little __goil__? Do ya think I'se gonna let'cha __go__?" The taller girl smirked, kicking the little girl again, hard, who screamed and rolled on the ground. Geez, what a crybaby._

_Something had fallen on the ground that she hadn't noticed before. It looked familiar. Curiously she picked it up. Brown leather sack tied by long chords. She ripped it open. All the money was still there._

_For a second she couldn't believe it. That couldn't have been it, because the same hard leather cord was handing around her neck. Quickly she scrunched up the fabric below her neck. No leather cord._

_She turned to the little girl, slowly. To everybody's surprise, including her own, she was smiling. There was a glint and a smirk to her eyes as she bellowed "RUN. GET OUT." When the girl didn't move, she kicked her again. "GET OUT." She repeated._

_This wasn't funny anymore. The kid lay there for another minute. Why the hell wasn't she leaving?! The stupid girl, what did 'get out' mean to her?! Her smile faded, replaced by rage. "GET OUT!" And then she really let it go._

_The girl was crying and screaming as she kicked her head, side and legs, over and over, and a crack and some blood told her that her nose was broken._

_And then she ran, cool as a cucumber. She did all she needed to; there was no need to overstay her own welcome. There was nothing for her here anymore. She ran, leaving the girl there huddled on the ground. For the first time in days, Hilda's emotions were settled, which could've been she was really after but really just trying to cope with. What a relief. She should do that again sometime, she realized. Though she would __really__ catch it from Muddah. In fact, she had probably been watching._

_-_

After she had run, she had found out that she was no acrobat- she had tripped four times, fallen two, and quickly become short of breath. That had actually been the first time she had beaten somebody up, despite the fact that she had yelled plenty of times. Hey, she was broke, but that wasn't on her mind anymore. _It didn't matter that I was on the streets for Christmas Week, _Hilda thought. _It didn't matter that I had to go to Harlem now._ _When was Christmas a time for celebrating anyway? It didn't stop the fact that people were still dying everywhere._

At last she didn't have to worry about worrying. Not now.

"Well, guys. I gotta go." Hilda said finally. She decided not to add _Assumin' you'll let me,_ because that would probably only worsen her chances. Overrated or not, these were still the Delancey Brothers. The red-head turned around, and assuming that since one of them (or both) hadn't grabbed her arm yet or started soaking her, she would probably make it out okay. And she had never really doubted this in the first place. Sometimes a person just needed to let off steam…

-

"Well. Forget about shanghaiing the goddamn newsies during the middle of the night." Oscar broke the silence.

Morris snorted. "_That_ was your plan? You _son of a bitch_, I could've told you that wouldn't work!" He said angrily. Why could they- or Oscar- never come up with a _decent_ plan? _Never_? Because Oscar thought he was so smart when he was a goddamn feeb, that's why.

"Okay. Okay!" Oscar's voice rose. "You come up with a plan, you dumb oxen!"

"That's dumb _ox_, you shithead." Morris said. "And how about just setting up one of those raccoon traps that Uncle Biff has." He smirked. "I'm _sure_ Weasel wouldn't mind. He hates Jack Kelly almost as much as we do."

Oscar lit a cigar and let it hang out of his mouth, ascending his eyes to the heavens. "Ya know? That's actually not a bad idea!" He could just picture, Cowboy's foot getting caught in the contraption, Cowboy yelping... _H__ey_. He smirked. _At least after that he would be real cowboy material._

"Well of course it's not." Morris said matter-of-factly. "It'll be nice to see the pride get sucked up outta that guy. Wipe that little smirk off his face."

Sometimes a person just needed to let off steam.

**AN- Hey, I know some of the name-calling here wasn't very accurate to the time period or anything, but I used it anyway for effect. At least I didn't use 'retard' right? lol. And I DO NOT in ANY way support bullying in ANY form. There. After writing this I just had to say that.**


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